Tools of the Trade

What Are Your Tools of the Trade?

• Are they honed, clean and ready to use or are they rusty and dull? 
• Do you know where they are?
• Did you share them with someone else and never ask for them back?
• Have you forgotten how to use your tools?
• Have you concluded those tools are obsolete and useless?

Asking these questions is just one way we get started with life guidance. If we're talking career guidance, the tools will be specific to what you do, or what you once were trained to do if you've left that career area.

Whether or not you want to work in the field for which your tools were obtained, they may just come in handy in a new field. Let's take a look in your toolbox and see what we can find there that will translate into use in the area you hope to move into.

Here's an example. You went to culinary school and were trained as a chef. For some reason you gave it up. Let's say you got married, had a couple of kids and stopped working. You have a nifty German knife bag filled with knives in the basement. You have a toque and smock. So we begin:

You: I'm sick of staying at home. I need to be productive again, but I don't know where to start.

Shielagh: if you could do anything in the world, what would you do?

You: I have no idea. That's why I need your guidance. I was a chef--no, I was a cook--in a big restaurant, seriously hectic and on my feet all day. All I know how to do is cook, and to be honest, I'm sick of cooking for my husband and my picky kids. Okay, he's picky, too. I hate cooking for picky eaters. It gets me really mad! So what good is it if I can whip up an amazing stir-fry of julienned root vegetables with aioli reduction on a bed of quinoa if I'm the only one who eats it? They want hot dogs and tater tots. I don't even eat hot dogs anymore.

Shielagh: Okay, I get the picture. Here's where we start. Have a smartphone? 

You: Yeah.

Shielagh: I want you to gather all the tools of that trade together. Get everything out and take a photo with them all in one spot, on a cleared counter, dining table or even your bed. Arrange it different ways and take more photos. Put on your toque and smock and take a selfie. Before our next session, I want you to email these photos to me, and then write a page or less about how you felt handling your tools, and how you felt wearing the uniform. Send me that, too.

So that's how we might start trying to get at the root of the problem. You would get out the tools of your trade, handle them and ideas would pop into your mind. Memories, old dreams, good times, bad times, deferred goals, what you miss and what you would never want to do again. All of it. And then we take a good hard look at it together. One of my favorite tools in my work as a guide is the "pros and cons list."

You're standing at the crossroads. You, the erstwhile chef (or cook), might decide to take a nutrition course online or at the community college and branch out into becoming a personal chef preparing healthy foods for someone with the money but no time. In fact, you might add an accounting course for the entrepreneur so you could handle the business end of working for yourself.

What are the tools of your trade?

Merrily We Roll Along

Along the Obed River, Tennessee

Do we go with the flow or fight the current?

The current often says, You have no say in the process so just roll along with me. Sometimes that's the right choice, but at other times we need to step ashore, get our bearings and consider another path to our goal.

Let's say you want to earn more money in your professional life. The flow in which you move pushes you along toward more responsibility and therefore more stress. They want to promote you at the firm, but then you must sleep with your cellphone on your chest, ever available to the powerful client. Some will say, Bring it on. I can do this! This in fact is what I have trained and sweated for, and I am willing to sacrifice some of my down time to move up.

But, perhaps the thought of the firm owning any more of your time, energy and peace of mind is unacceptable. The mere thought of the big client reaching into your nights, weekends, vacations and even holidays is enough to make you feel physically sick. And angry. You say to yourself, This isn't what I worked so hard in grad school to do with my life. I wanted to help the downtrodden, or soar in creative flight to change the world, or opt out of the rat race to become an activist with my degrees.

And thus you find yourself at the crossroads. Again. Wasn't it enough to chose the right college and suffer through work study and the weight of loans? Wasn't deferring your work life to fine-tune your skills in graduate school with the additional debt it brought sufficient? Shouldn't you be there by now, easily moving along in the stream of your life? So why doesn't this feel right?

These questions are similar and yet different for each of us. My path to this spot upon which I stand was unique to me. Yours is unique to you. But if you don't like the view from that place, and the stream as it flows on seems to be going somewhere you have no desire to visit, you have the opportunity to make another crossroads choice right now. Step out of the stream, if even for a few minutes a day, to get your bearings and consider your options. Disconnect from the constant communication with the world and listen to the energy within. 

You have a right to feel you are exactly where you are meant to be. And now, what next?

Why Life Guidance?

Each one of us needs some guidance. 

Maybe we aren't sure which of several options would best meet our goals. Or we aren't sure we have what it takes to try something new. Or we question our very values, wondering if we need to find and live by other stars than the old tried and true we used to guide us along the way thus far.

People seek guidance for these and countless other reasons, and we have a variety of people from whom to seek it. Nowadays many use therapists to try out their ideas and explore their motivations. Some use bartenders, hairdressers or best friends to air their issues and express their concerns. Those lucky enough to be in recovery from addiction may use sponsors and program friends as sounding boards. Rabbis, priests, ministers, shamans, godparents or other wise teachers might fit the bill.  Quite a few choose family members for guidance, such as mother, father, grandparent, sibling or even an adult offspring. Some turn to their children for guidance, and while many kids have wisdom beyond their years, it can be a burden to try to help a parent cope with life.

So if you don't need a therapist (been there, done that, have the t-shirt), and you don't have a sponsor, a spiritual adviser, or a family member you can trust to guide you wisely, utilizing a life guide can step into that place in your life. 

My experience providing guidance comes, in part, from many years of working as a psychologist. Now, what I offer guidance clients is not psychotherapy. When people contact me for guidance services but have mental or emotional disorders requiring treatment, I refer them to the American Psychological Association to get names of licensed psychologists in their geographical areas. Guidance is not about digging into the psyche or unearthing traumatic material to free someone from a cycle of dysfunctional behaviors. Guidance is about suggestion, feedback, and making and working towards goals, however small or large they may be. 

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog. I will be posting to it regularly in the days and weeks to come. Come visit my website at The Good Garden Life Guidance if you'd like to contact me.

Bloom where you are planted.